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LIFE ON THE REFRIGERATOR DOOR

NOTES BETWEEN A MOTHER AND DAUGHTER

Sometimes minimalism is art, but here less is less.

As the title implies, Kuiper’s first novel is composed entirely of notes a mother and daughter leave for each other on the refrigerator door.

Mom is a busy obstetrician recently separated from her husband. Claire is her 15-year-old daughter. Despite a few random complaints, mostly about needing money to buy the lists of items Mom requests, Claire comes across from the beginning as too good to be true—independent yet loving and responsible. Mom comes across as very absentee and whiny. Her lack of a cell phone, a complaint of Claire’s, is a little odd, especially given her frequent notes about being called to an emergency delivery. Then notes back and forth about doctor appointments and mammograms start to appear. Around the same time, Mom starts leaving messages about a boy named Michael having called for Claire. A note refers to the lump Mom has in her breast. Soon she and Claire are arranging by note for Claire to accompany Mom to the lumpectomy. Claire grocery shops and cooks for Mom. Mom continues to work. Claire worries about Mom but is also dating Michael, whom Mom never gets around to meeting. Claire and Mom bicker over Michael and Claire briefly goes to stay with Dad. Mom admits she has cancer. Michael and Claire break up, get back together, break up again. Claire realizes how serious Mom’s condition is. Claire and Dad get Mom a wig for her chemo but Mom freaks out. Mom leaves petulant notes and then apologizes. Claire gets a little angry and then apologizes. Basically, the novel progresses from nice-normal to nice-sad to nice-supersad as Mom’s health deteriorates. Eventually, Claire is leaving notes to say she is in the backyard, and Mom’s notes say she’s resting. Claire leaves two last notes after Mom has died to say how much she loved Mom and to tell her about her new boyfriend James. All of which makes for an easy read for those looking for sad-lite.

Sometimes minimalism is art, but here less is less.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007

ISBN: 978-0-06-137049-6

Page Count: 240

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2007

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A LITTLE LIFE

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.

Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.  

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

Pub Date: March 10, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8

Page Count: 720

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015

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THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE

Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.

Life lessons.

Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.

Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.

Pub Date: July 1, 2004

ISBN: 0-345-46750-7

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004

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